Devil Went Down in Kansas
by AlexJanna
Summary: It was a Hail Mary. Crazy brilliant and nearly impossible to pull off. Of course Dean had to give it a try. The fate of the world depended on it.


**Title**: Devil Went Down in Kansas  
**Author**: alexjanna91  
**Fandom**: Supernatural  
**Pairing**: Dean, Sam, Castiel, Bobby, Michael, Lucifer  
**Rating**: PG13  
**Genre**: 5.22 Swan Song AU  
**Disclaimer**: SPN is not mine.  
**Word Count**: 5,700  
**Warning**: demon deals, apocalypse, temporary character death  
**Summary**: It was a Hail Mary. Crazy brilliant and nearly impossible to pull off. Of course Dean had to give it a try. The fate of the world depended on it.  
**A/N**: Inspired by the Charlie Daniels song, _Devil Went Down to Georgia_.

* * *

It was a Hail Mary. It was a long shot, a long shot that, if it worked, would save the world; it would save Sammy.

Dean was the one who found it. It was in archaic Latin; Dean was barely able to understand a tenth of it. The book was bound in leather, no title and pages that felt disturbingly silky. When he'd caught Cas scrunching his nose up in disgust, he decided that he was just not going to think about what the thing was made of. Ever.

They knew the rules, legalese, and the beyond confusing standard outline of demon deals so well by then Dean could recite them backwards and in three different languages. Demons black eyed, red eyed, yellow eyed, white eyed; it didn't matter, you could make a Deal with any or all of them. A soul was a soul and a soul was power.

All demons craved the power of owning a human soul. They were greedy, hungry, gluttons for it. Demons conned and lied and twisted and threatened just to get anyone to sign –i_kiss/i_- on the dotted line.

No demon resisted the temptation without a damned good reason.

But even with all the trouble they'd go to closing a Deal they were still beings of Hell and therefore subject to its rules.

The Devil was no exception.

He may have been an angel, but he had been irrevocably changed when he'd been thrown down and locked away. Cas had once mentioned, with a pained mournful expression, that Lucifer was once God's most beautiful angels. Now, after rebelling, commanding an army against Heaven, and ripping and tearing the first demons into existence, he was unredeemable changed. That kind of taint never washes off.

Lucifer was just as much a being of Hell as his demons and so he was subject to the same rules of Hell Deals as the demons were. However, because the contracts were incomprehensible in their wording, if you didn't have a degree in supernatural contract law there was no way you could find all the loopholes to keep the demons from weaseling out of their end of deal if they wanted to. And they so did love to weasel.

After Bobby and Castiel had both read the spell over and over again, Dean couldn't help the manic grin from splitting his face when they'd both turned to look at him like he was quite possibly insane.

He was a high school drop with a GED, six bucks to his name, and a can-do attitude. He'd said he would find a way out. He'd said he would stop the Devil, stop the apocalypse.

And that's exactly what he was going to do.

* * *

"Boy, this is a bad idea." Bobby felt he had to at least give one last token protest. He knew it wouldn't do any good. Dean was stubborn as a mule and twice as crazy.

"I agree. You cannot possibly hope to best the Devil in this way." Castiel looked haggard, tired and scruffier than ever. He looked human and Dean burned as the tally of things he was going to fix acquired one more tick.

"I heard you the first thousand times." Dean was determined, fixed on his course and it would take an act of God himself to stop him and he didn't thing God would be assed to lift a finger. "This is the only chance we've got and I'll be damned again if I don't give it a shot."

There was silence in the car for a moment. It was Cas who broke it. "It has been an honor to know you, to fight beside you, Dean Winchester."

Stunned, Dean didn't have time to respond before Bobby spoke up too. "Boy, I never said it, but you're the son I always wished I had."

Great, now his throat was aching, closing up and his eyes were stinging. There was a heavy silence the rest of the drive to Cas and Bobby's drop off point.

The Impala stopped and Dean sat stiff and suddenly numb in the driver's seat. This was probably the last time he would ever see them again. The thought dug that hollow pit in his stomach even deeper. Bobby and Cas got out with their bag of distractions and made to go on foot and take up their positions.

"Bobby." He called unable to just leave the rest of their short lives with unspoken words. Bobby stopped and turned back to look at him. "I love you like a father."

The older hunter looked stunned and heartbroken, but Dean didn't give him a chance to respond.

"Cas." The angel, because that's what he'll always be to Dean, looked at him with solemn blue eyes. "You are my best friend. I couldn't ask for a better one."

A weight visibly lifted from Cas' shoulders and he nodded in simple acknowledgement.

Dean looked at them, the last family he has, one last time before jerking his Baby into drive and flooring it.

Blaring Def Leopard and honking his horn, Dean gatecrashed the ultimate angel cat fight.

Michael wearing Adam's face and Lucifer wearing Sam's jerked their heads toward him. Dean was very discomforted by the rage in Michael's eyes and the condescending amusement turning the corner of Lucifer's lips up.

"I want to talk to you." Dean was out of the car and placing himself in the middle of two very pissed off, very powerful angels who had more daddy issues than a back alley hooker.

Lucifer didn't even have the decency to look curious; just that cold calculating amusement.

Michael on the other hand… "Leave Dean Winchester. This is no longer your concern."

Glaring, Dean turned and looked Adam in the eyes piercing through the angel and grazing the vessel's soul. "Adam, I'm sorry."

"This isn't Adam any longer." Michael said with a stoic tone of voice that oozed a subtext of _You_ _Idiot_.

Now, that just pissed him off. "Hey! I wasn't talking to you!" He snapped then abruptly realized how very stupid that was.

Michael looked about ready to strike him down with a holy lightning bolt, but Cas and Bobby got there first.

"Hey, Assbutt!"

If they lived through this, Dean was so teaching Cas how to cuss properly. Still, A for effort.

Before anyone could blink, angels included, Cas flicked the zippo Dean had given him as a we're-probably-going-to-die- tomorrow present and lit a Molotov cocktail on fire then threw it.

It soared in a picture perfect arc hitting right in the middle of Michael's chest. The Arch-Angel screamed and burst into flames before disappearing all together. There was silence for a long surprised moment.

"Dean, you've got five minutes." Cas said sounding just a little stunned at himself for actually doing that.

Lucifer turned rage filled eyes on Cas and blew him up into a bloody mist.

The crack in his heart that had been slowly expanding since Sam had said Yes gave a surge and broke further. Blowing out a breath and trying to school his emotions, Dean turned back to Lucifer and pasted confident determination on his face.

It was obvious Lucifer saw right through it.

"I want to talk to you." He said again.

Lucifer gave him a cold smile, white hot rage simmering just below the surface. It sent a chill up his spine. "Sammy can't come out and play right now. He's a little indisposed."

A rage of his own swept over him. "I don't want to talk to Sam." Yes, he did; with every part of his soul. "I said I want to talk to you, douchebag."

One second Lucifer was standing ten feet away listening to this insignificant, flawed abortion demand his attention like he was Father himself. The next Dean felt his cheekbone give under his brother's Arch-Angel power fist.

Dean's back hit his car denting Baby and possibly fracturing several of his vertebrae. There was a blast of a shot gun and a sound like a tree branch snapping then utter silence.

He didn't have to look to know Bobby was lying on the ground with his neck snapped. He felt the canyon in his heart carve deeper.

Lucifer turned back to him and raised his fist. Dean was pretty sure that if he didn't want a fractured skull he'd better start talking.

"I want to make a Deal!" His shout was slurred and half garbled due to the absolute agony in his cheek, but the angel heard him perfectly well.

He actually looked minutely surprised at this turn of events. That was something at least.

"You want to make a Deal." It wasn't a question.

Dean pushed himself to his feet once again with a steadying hand on the car. "I want to make a Deal. A race; my car against your car. You win, you get your pissing contest, and," he swallowed dryly, "my soul."

"And if you win?" Lucifer was intrigued now. Dean had never been so grateful be looked at like a vaguely interesting bug doing something unexpected.

"You and Michael let my brothers go and you jump back into your cage. No more apocalypse."

"Now this is all very amusing, but I could just kill you and do whatever I want." The words, so smooth and certain; they reminded Dean of 2014 Lucifer in that hideous white suit. It was not a pretty thought.

"Yeah, but then all the demons and angels would know that you didn't want to race me. They'd think you didn't have a chance of winning against me." He knew it was a slim chance, but if he managed to goad the Devil into racing him for the lives of every human on earth, Dean figured it would add a couple of points on his badass card.

"It is pointless to try and trick me into making this Deal with you." Lucifer sneered. "I am older than Earth, Hell, and Time itself. I thought you'd learned you couldn't trick me when your brother said Yes."

Low blow, dick bag. "Yeah, sure, but you've been in timeout for what, like a million years or something. You probably don't know how to turn a car on much less drive one." Alright so he was picking on him like a bully in the school yard; a dangerous play, Dean Winchester. But if you thought about it; Lucifer was, as Death had said, "a bratty child throwing a temper tantrum".

If there was anything Dean knew how to do it was deal with a batty child. He'd raised Sam almost by himself after all.

"I could rend you down to your molecules and toss you into the cosmos."

"But you still wouldn't be able to beat me in a race."

There was stillness. Dean didn't even think the leaves in the trees were moving since there didn't seem to be a breeze anymore. Lucifer looked down at Dean with such a look absolute loathing that he was surprised he hadn't actually burst into flames yet.

"Brother." The silence was broken and both Dean and Lucifer turned to see Michael that had finally returned from his vacation via Molotov. "This Deal is foolish. It is a waste of time to even contemplate it." He sounded like a scolding big brother, disapproving, and confident that his orders would be followed.

Awesome, Dean thought. Michael had just done in ten seconds what Dean had spent five minutes, a broken cheek and a cracked back trying to do.

If there was one thing little brothers couldn't resist, it was defying their older brothers just to spite them. Even if they ended up cutting their nose off in the process.

Lucifer turned back to Dean with a determined, defiant look in his ice cold eyes. "You have a Deal."

His gut clinched, but he threw him on a cocky smile and straightened up off his car. "So, what, do we shake on it? Kiss on it?"

"I do not have to sink to such plebian methods to seal a Deal." Lucifer sneered and if Dean didn't know better he could have sworn the Devil had just stuck his nose up in the air and flicked his head as if to toss his hair over his shoulder.

"So… Shake on it?" Come on, come on. Shake on it. Just freaking shake on.

"Bother! No!" Michael reached out a hand and took a step forward as if to physically stop them.

The Devil ignored him completely. He just thrust out Sam's large paw and grasped Dean's hand hard enough to break bones. He actually heard the delicate bones in his hand snap.

Biting the inside of his cheek bloody, Dean jerked their hands so his was on top and brought his left hand down almost faster than the eye could see. He thrust his knife straight through his hand and into Sam's.

Lucifer's eyes widened in alarm and he tried to pull away but the magic was already starting to claw into them.

Dean looked into Lucifer's murderous gaze. "Lucifer, Morning Star, Adversary, you are so bound by the spirit of this agreement." He intoned, his words gravelly, his voice harsh, and shoved out through gritted teeth. The spell crawling up his arm was so beyond painful his broken bones and his skewered had felt like insignificant itches.

Face twisted in rage beyond anything Dean had very seen before, Lucifer in toned the next words of the spell. He didn't have a choice. Finish it or the magic would wipe you out of existence all together.

"Dean Winchester, Righteous Man, Michael Sword, you are so bound by the spirit of this agreement."

Together they finished, "We uphold the spirit of this agreement with the power of our souls and so it shall be."

The magic surged and sunk its talons deep and agonizing into Dean's soul. He could feel it; feel it like the pit of nothing Famine had been fascinated by, like the raw charred taint of Hell. He could feel it like the gaping bleeding hole where the only family he'd ever known should be.

Surprisingly, Lucifer didn't look like he was weathering the setting of the spell any better.

When it was finally over the knife had melted through their impaled hands and fell to the ground between them. It was no longer needed to anchor the spell and Lucifer and Dean yanked their hands away like they were shocked.

The gaping wound in his trembling hand burned like fire and Dean held it up so he could pull the handkerchief from his back pocket and wrap it one handed. Lucifer didn't bother, his impaled hand dripped blood staining the grass below him.

Dean could tell Lucifer was not happy in the least by what he had done. Demon Deals are all hard lines and shrewd calculation, exact and coached in so much contradictory lawyer mumbo jumbo they were almost incomprehensible. They relied on specific words and precise phrasing.

The spell Dean had just used to bind him and Lucifer together was ancient and dark and siphoned power from their souls in a way that warped reality if miss handled.

The spell does exactly what it says. It binds them to the _spirit_ of the agreement. There would be no Lucifer using Dean's lack of specifically exact phrasing against him. There would no Dean crossing his fingers and conning his way out.

They were bound by the Earth's wild magic itself and it didn't take too kindly to weaseling of any sort. If either of them violated the spirit of their agreement, because it is powered by their souls, Earth's magic will implode them leaving nothing left but smoking craters in the ground.

Yeah, this was a terrible idea, but what could he say. Dean was a master at terrible ideas.

Tying off his makeshift bandage and glancing briefly at a grave Michael standing behind them, Dean looked back up at Lucifer. "Let's do this."

With a snap of the Devil's fingers they were on an abandoned stretch of highway with faded yellow lines and miles of empty land on either side.

Baby was there, whole and hearty. Dean was stroking his bandaged hand over her hood when he realized that his back wasn't in agony anymore and his cheek wasn't so beyond pain it was numb. The bones in his hands were healed as well, but the stab wound remained. It was magic made and only the completion of the magic would heal it.

Turning back to the two Arch-Angels, Dean looked at the car parked next to Lucifer. His mouth twisted in contempt.

The fucking thing was gold. It was a beast and glinted menacingly in the sunlight. It was frightening for all that it looked like any other sports car on the roads. Dean got the feeling that it was marginally sentient and _Christine_ levels of psychotic.

It was morbidly beautiful and a million times more eye-catching and flashy than the Impala. It was doubtlessly freakishly fast and pumped so full of demonic, fallen angel mojo that it could turn the asphalt to melting tar in its wake.

It was a fierce car and would win any race it drove.

But it wasn't Dean's Baby.

"Do you think you can beat me, Lucy, even with that Hell beast?" Dean raised a dubious eyebrow. "I mean how many times have you really raced a car?" Half the work of winning a race was psyching out the other driver.

The Devil sneered. "You forget, Dean. I'm in your brother's head and there isn't anything he doesn't know about you." He grinned then, "There isn't anything i_I/i_ don't know about you. Truly, I think I'm playing with an unfair advantage."

Dean bit his tongue and glared. It was time to get this shit done.

"What it'll be? Racing for pink slips _Grease_ style or _Dukes of Hazard_ running from Boss Hog?"

Lucifer looked at Dean's car and a smirk etched onto his face like stone. Dean didn't let the disturbing sight get to him. Baby would win. There was no doubt in Dean's mind.

"I'm thinking _Dukes of Hazzard_. I liked watching the reruns." The cold smile turned into an arctic grin.

Dean pressed a hand to his car in solidarity. They were going to wipe that smirk right off the smug bastard's face.

Nodding in agreement, Dean rounded his car and opened to driver's side door.

"Brother dear," Lucifer called as he started to get into his car. "Would you do the honors?"

Michael looked like he'd rather be getting a colonoscopy. Like it was below him to even be participating in such a childish display, but since the magic bound him by Lucifer's agreement as well he was forced to see this through. He walked up between the cars and stood facing them. With a snap of his fingers the entire landscape in front of them twisted and warped and shifted until it looked like an obstacle course made just for two ton, steel muscle cars.

"Start your engines." That sounded a little bit wrong coming out of Michael's mouth instead of a hot chick with skimpy clothes, but whatever.

Dean turned the key and inhaled the first easy breath he'd taken since finding that binding spell in that creepy ancient book. Baby purred and rumbled and growled around him. Grinning he patted her on the dashboard and murmured, "Come on, sweetheart. We can do this. We're going to kick his evil ass."

She growled in agreement and Dean revved the engine.

Glancing over toward Lucifer's car Dean saw actual Hell fire licking the tires, spitting out of the exhaust pipe, and curling from up under the hood. It was an insult to muscle cars everywhere.

"Get ready." Michael called, raising his arm. There was a tense pause then his arm fell and the cars almost broke the sound barrier. "Go!"

Their tires smoked, their engines roared as they shot forward ruffling Michael's hair.

They hit the course at the same time and it wasn't half a second into it Dean realized that it was actually modeled straight out of _Dukes of Hazard_. Literally. There were broken down wooden bridges, flowing creeks, low water crossings, and the odd inconveniently placed county fair. Michael had gone all out; there were even bumbling county deputies appearing out of nowhere to chase them.

Hitting the convenient dirt ramps wasn't exactly good for his baby, but she came through for him every time. Lucifer's abomination was neck and neck with them, matching them jump for jump. Dean knew that if he was going to win this thing, his advantage lay in the off-roading. It was one thing to jump over a creek; it was another to handle your car through trees, dirt pot holes, dry brush, and rocky dirt roads.

And if there was one thing Dean knew, it was how to handle his baby like she was part of his own body. He'd been driving her since he was thirteen, he knew her in and out, had rebuilt her from the ground up. He'd literally poured his own blood, sweat, and tears into her. With him at the wheel there was absolutely nothing she couldn't do.

Lucifer may drive his monstrosity like a stunt driver, but he didn't care about the car. He didn't know it like the back of his hand. To him it was a tool. It had no soul.

Dean ran over brush, scraped between trees, anticipated dips, weathered rocky terrain. He avoided what he could and he plowed through what he couldn't. He silently promised Baby he'd patch her up the moment this was over, but despite the rough treatment she flew down the trail like she was made for it.

Lucifer on the other hand, was driving picture perfect. He weaved around trees and brush, he jerked around dips, he avoided rocks at every opportunity. He drove for the preservation of a tool, and the universally accepted rules of getting through unhospitable terrain as intact as possible. Despite the difference in their driving techniques he kept nearly neck and neck with Dean. He had all the angelically manufactured experience and knowledge he needed to win a straight forward race.

But he didn't know what it felt like to have that bone deep adrenaline rush that came with speeding through obstacles like your life depended on it. He'd never chased a would-be rapist to the death, never led an angry ghost truck into a trap; he'd never had to run from the cops to avoid prison time. He had no idea what it truly felt like to know that if you didn't push your car to its absolute limit it was all over.

Really, in the end, the Devil didn't stand a chance.

Dean shot through the finish line half a car length before Lucifer and jerked his wheel skidding a 180 to face his opponent.

They idled on the other side of the finish line, facing each other; the Devil the loser, bound by soul magic and a Hell Deal, and Dean the winner, victorious in the fight for humanity. For the rest of his life, Dean will never forget the look of absolutely shocked murderous rage on Lucifer's face.

The world flickered around them and they were in Stull Cemetery once again. Michael was standing off to the side, a resigned stoic expression on his face; the Devil was standing across from Dean staring at him with an utterly blank mask fixed in place. Dean reckoned that must be what Lucifer would look like right before he destroyed the world.

"You lost, Lucifer. Time to pay up." Alright, so Dean isn't the most gracious of winners, but he was past done with the Apocalypse, done with angels and their biblical crap. He was just done.

There was a long moment of silence and neither angel moved. Then Lucifer asked, "How could you win? I know everything about you. It's all in Sam's head. I know how to handle your car, how you drive, every stunt you've ever pulled in that rust heap. I know the darkness in your soul, the emptiness in your heart. I even know your goddamned daddy issues! How is this possible?"

Dean restrained himself from responding to the daddy issues comment with something pithy and sure to get him smote regardless of their Deal. Instead he said, "You said you know everything about me; how I drive the Impala, how to drive the Impala yourself, because you are in Sam's head and he knows everything about me. It's true, Sam knows everything there is to know about me, how I like to drive my car, how I know her inside and out. You modeled your driving on what Sam knows, but what you forgot is that I taught Sam how to drive and he never loved the Impala like I love her. He doesn't know to drive her like I do."

He looked at the Devil triumphantly. "No matter what you yanked from Sam's head; you never stood a chance."

Incredulity twisted harsh and ugly over Lucifer's face. "My car was crafted from the fires of Hell themselves! It was beyond more powerful than your ancient piece of scrap metal."

He ignored the insult to his car with an iron grip of control. When his rage past, he looked the angel in the eye and said, "You can know the ins and outs of driving the best in the universe, but you drive a car you don't love and it'll fail you every time. Love keeps her going when she should have died; tells you what she needs before she stalls. It makes her the best damned car in the world."

The Devil stared at him in disbelief and Dean just grinned.

"Pay up, Satan."

Shock flashed over Lucifer's face before he screamed with enough true voice to shatter Baby's windows. There was a shock wave like a bomb gone off then a burning bright white light ejected from Sam's body like a bullet from a gun.

For a split second Dean saw a singed vaguely humanoid figure with ten indistinguishable faces so mangled they almost weren't even faces anymore; ten rings were melted into the thing's body and grown over with blackened, cracked grace like the scorched aftermath of a fire. The Morning Star's ten pairs of wings were twisted, contorted, charred black, still burning in places, and disintegrated like skeletal branches on a diseased tree.

It was hideous.

A massive hole suddenly exploded from the ground. There was a howling gale that threatened to suck in everything like a black hole. It wasn't opened for more than the blink of an eye before the Arch-Angel was sucked down violently and the hole twisted in on its self and disappeared like it had never been there.

Nearly hyperventilating from witnessed such a potentially devastating biblically epic event, Dean had to lean against his car and put his head between his knees. The second he got himself under control Dean stood back up and looked to where the Devil had once been standing. Crumpled onto the ground like a puppet with its strings cut was Sam, unconscious, but whole.

Running toward his baby brother, Dean skidded the last four feet and pulled Sam onto his back with shaking hands.

"Sammy? Come on, Sam. Open your eyes, little brother." He had a pulse, but he wasn't responding.

"He will regain consciousness shortly."

Looking away from his passed out brother, Dean turned his attention to Michael who was apparently still around and still wearing his half-brother.

"Why aren't you ejected back to Heaven right now?" He demanded.

Michael didn't react visibly he just stared at the spot where his once beloved younger brother had disappeared. "I intend to honor the spirit of the Deal and so I am granted a few moments leniency to speak with you."

Warily curious, Dean asked, "What could you possibly have to say to me?"

Shifting his gaze toward Dean, Michael answered. "I have been waiting to battle my brother for longer than you can comprehend. I've been preparing to kill a most beloved sibling and every second of it was agony." He looked up toward the sky with a deeply sad expression. "This was a test and I have failed it."

"Uh…" Dean didn't really know how to respond to that.

Michael didn't need a response because he continued, "No deviation of the path occurs without our Father's guiding hand. We have forgotten this." He looked back down at Dean and the emotions in the angel's eyes made Dean's chest ache. "We have failed to recognize his presence and so we have failed Him."

He didn't know what to say to that. What do you say to a being older than the Earth itself when it's weighed down by the knowledge that it's disappointed its dad?

The answer is nothing, so he just let Michael talk. He got the feeling that was what the angel needed; someone to listen. He was going to honor his involuntary part of the Deal and he'd just lost his brother for the second time; Dean could listen to him unload for the few minutes it took for Sam to wake up.

"The only one of my siblings that has followed our Father's wishes is Castiel. He alone has pleased Father." A wry quirk of Michael's lips made him look almost human. "There is a human saying, 'Out of the mouths of babes'. Castiel, though young he may be, has wisdom beyond all of his siblings."

Dean decided to wait to digest the revelation that Cas really was the littlest angel until he wasn't still playing sympathetic ear to the most powerful angel to ever angel.

Meeting Dean's eyes again, Michael visibly prepared himself to depart for Heaven. "I must now return to face my punishment. I will return Adam's soul to its rightful place in Heaven."

There wasn't any time to say anything else because another flash of blinding light lit up the cemetery and then Dean was watching Adam's body disintegrate down to the molecules and float away on the breeze.

He sat in silence not even knowing what he felt now. Lucifer was locked up again, Michael had spilled his guts, and he'd watched his half-brother's body crumbled to dust. He settled on surprisingly numb as he sat next to his still sleeping brother. It was all over. They'd saved the world and he and Sam were all alone again.

A flutter of wings made him jerk his head around. There, kneeling beside him was Castiel, alive, wearing his flasher trench coat and staring at him intently.

"You're alive." Not the most eloquent, but hey, he was still in shock from stopping the Apocalypse.

"Yes." Cas agreed with a small smile. "I am very surprised as well."

"Dude, you're like a cat or something. You've got nine lives." Grinning, Dean clapped Cas on shoulder and gave him a friendly shake.

"I do believe you have me beat on resurrections, Dean." New and improved and snarky as ever. Dean's heart swelled and he ruthlessly shoved away the stinging in his eyes.

Before he could toss something just as snarky back, Sam shot up with gasp and stared around himself wide eyed and confused.

He finally noticed Dean and Cas kneeling next to him, both staring at him expectantly.

Stunned, Sam looked down at himself patting all over his chest looking for a gaping hole the shape of an angel sword. When he didn't find one, he looked back up at Dean with silver dollar sized hazel eyes.

"Holy crap, I'm alive."

Suddenly, Dean felt absolutely giddy with joy and triumph. He threw his head back and laughed; it rumbled up from his chest and filled the air like it hadn't since he had held his brother's dead body in his arms in Cold Oak.

Listening to the sound of it, it was impossible for Sam and Cas not to smile as the pure joy of Dean's laughter poured over them.

He didn't stop laughing even as he lunged forward and dragging his little brother into his arms, crushing him nearly painfully against his chest.

"God, I love you, little bother!" He breathed in between giggles.

Sam hugged him back just as hard even as he sent a bemused questioning look at Castiel. The angel just smiled at the brothers and gave Sam a shrug. The apocalypse was over and Dean was happy. There wasn't anything more to say.

Turning away from the scene of reunion, Castiel stood and walked over to the body of Robert Steven Singer. His Father had given him the gift of life once again and so Castiel was going to pass it on.

Pressing two fingers to Bobby's forehead, Cas felt the old hunters soul fall from Heaven channel through him and back into its rightful vessel. Bobby gasped and sat up looking around. Seeing Cas' legs in his exploration, he moved his gaze upward and looked at the angel in shock.

"I'm pretty sure you exploded."

"I did." Cas responded, then offered a hand to pull him to his feet.

Standing now Bobby was able to see Sam and Dean finally pulling out of their glad-to-be-alive hug as they looked over toward them.

Surprise and happiness broke over their faces and they both scrambled to their feet and jogged over to Bobby. The older man was crushed between them and none of them were embarrassed by the tears in their eyes.

Pulling back from the embrace Bobby and Sam both turned to Dean with uncomprehending looks.

"Boy, how in the Hell did you actually pull it off?"

Dean grinned wide enough to split his face. "Let's head back and I'll tell you all about how awesome I am."

He got amused eye rolls, but no protests. Dean had just stopped the apocalypse. He was definitely all kinds of awesome.

Three hunters and an angel, alive and triumphant, got into the car that saved the world and headed home.

* * *

End.


End file.
